Film Review: I Come in Peace (Dark Angel, 1990)

When communities and nations are struck by sudden surges of drug addiction, people often try to make sense of it by blaming it on the evil schemes of powerful malevolent entities. Many of these conspiracy theories involve the government, which is the premise used in the 1990 science fiction action film I Come in Peace, directed by Craig W. Baxley, also known under the alternative title Dark Angel.

The plot begins in Houston during the Christmas season when a spaceship lands and a huge alien named Talec (played by Matthias Hues) disembarks, claiming that he “comes in peace.” However, those words should be taken with a grain of salt, and the first to learn this are the members of the White Boys, a gang of vicious yuppie-looking criminals. After stealing impounded heroin from a federal warehouse and blowing it up to hide the evidence, they plan to sell it, unaware that the purchase is a sting operation led by maverick Houston police detective Jack Caine (played by Dolph Lundgren). While Caine gets distracted by a nearby petty robbery, Talec crashes the meeting, killing the White Boys with a flying self-guided blade and stealing all of the heroin. Caine tries to make sense of what happened, but due to the crime being connected with federal property, the FBI, represented by Inspector Switzer (played by David Ackroyd), gets involved in the investigation, and Caine is assigned a partner, the arrogant Special Agent Arwood “Larry” Smith (played by Brian Benben). As the two men try to work together, Diane Pallone (played by Betsy Brantley), a coroner and Caine’s girlfriend, discovers a series of murders in which all the victims were injected with pure heroin and then had their endorphins sucked out of their brains. The puzzle is completed with the arrival of Azeck (played by Jay Bilas), another alien who is actually a police officer hunting down Talec. It is revealed that Talec is a drug dealer who extracts human endorphins in order to create a powerful and lucrative drug that he intends to sell on his world.

I Come in Peace attempts, and for the most part succeeds, in featuring most of the iconography and plot elements associated with classics of the 1980s action genre. We have a macho protagonist with plenty of muscle, a seemingly indestructible and unstoppable villain with superhuman abilities, drug dealers portrayed as the vilest villains imaginable, a disdain for yuppies who are shown as the embodiment of everything wrong with America, "buddy buddy" comedy featuring a rule-breaking working-class and a by-the-book middle-class policeman, black humor and one-liners mixed with spectacular violence, a character of a beautiful woman whose main purpose is to reassure the audience of the protagonist’s heterosexuality, car chases and gunfire mixed with pyrotechnics, a final showdown in an abandoned building, cinematography dominated by bright colors and plenty of pink in night scenes, a synthesizer music score (provided here by Jan Hammer of Miami Vice fame), and, last but not least, a scene in a strip club as an excuse to feature topless women. Such a wealth of material could have been separately used in numerous films, but director Craig R. Baxley manages to compress it into an easily digestible hour and a half of running time. Baxley did such a good job that I Come in Peace nearly became too short; instead, he had to pad the film with a couple of repetitive scenes of Talec killing people.

Baxley, who began his career as a stuntman, obviously enjoyed making this film and showed great talent for action scenes that feature a lot of good stunt work. The alien subplot works despite the almost complete absence of special effects. The cast is at the top of their game. Dolph Lundgren, who yearned for an opportunity to prove himself as an actor and not just a mountain of muscles, delivers a surprisingly good performance in the role of Caine, playing a character who possesses not only physical power but also intelligence, which he uses in his banter with his FBI partner. Brian Benben, best known for his comic roles, creates good "buddy buddy" chemistry, and the pairing is made even more effective by the contrasting statures of Lundgren and Benben. German athlete and martial artist Matthias Hues puts his even greater height to good use, making Lundgren appear small and vulnerable in fight scenes; Hues further contributes to the film by performing all of his stunts because producers couldn’t find any stuntman to match his height. Charming Betsy Brantley also seems to have great fun with her potentially thankless role. The same can be said for the small army of capable character actors, including veteran Michael J. Pollard in the small role of Caine’s informer and Mark Lowenthal as a paranoid drug-taking scientist.

Some may argue that I Come in Peace is simply too silly and represents a product of its time. However, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. One of the subplots features government officials not only being aware of aliens but also willing to be in cahoots with them at the expense of ordinary people. This plot strand, obviously inspired by the Iran-Contra scandal and speculations of the US government cooperating with Latin American drug lords, would later be further expanded in The X-Files. This film, however, can be enjoyed even by people unaware of its political context and ultimately delivers more than solid entertainment.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

Link to the film trailer: I Come in Peace Trailer

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